


all my friends were glorious

by remrose



Category: Macdonald Hall - Gordon Korman
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 15:54:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5462396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remrose/pseuds/remrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In hindsight, putting 'friendly competition' and 'Bruno Walton' in the same vicinity was something of a mistake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all my friends were glorious

**Author's Note:**

  * For [strippedhalo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strippedhalo/gifts).



Macdonald Hall is a grand old boarding school found East of Toronto, just off of Highway 48. It has ivy-covered buildings and rolling green lawns. This boys’ school is one of the most respected in the country. But, judging by the frantic shouting coming from the cafeteria, that might be an oversight...

[]

It all started just less than a month ago, when the Ontario Children's Charity Foundation started their annual drive for funding to buy misfortunate children across the province Christmas presents. This year, schools in and around the Toronto area decided to participate.

Mr. Hartley, the headmaster of York Academy, proposed a little friendly competition to Mr. Sturgeon, the headmaster of the respected Macdonald Hall, to see which of the two schools could raise the most money.

In hindsight, putting 'friendly competition' and 'Bruno Walton' in the same vicinity was something of a mistake.

It began with the usual fervour, the Macdonald Hall boys an old hand at fundraising, pulling out all of their usual tricks. The boys of the 'Help the Children' committee spent hours in the kitchens making goodies for bake sales, making crafts to sell, car washes, and everything else they could think of from their arsenal.

York Academy's total fundraising was watched by a large banner hung in the cafeteria when every day at noon Larry Wilson gets an updated number from the office and marks it on the banner in black sharpie pen, next to Macdonald Hall's red. For most of the month long competition, the two schools remained at a tight neck-and-neck. York had barbeques, went door-to-door, and wrote letter campaigns. Bruno Walton, head of the Help the Children committee, focused on more immediate pay-offs with their money-making tactics, which would be their downfall.

Three days before the end of the competition, the persistent letter-writing of York Academy pays off when their area's Member of Parliament sends a big, fat cheque.

Pale faced, that same day at noon, Larry Wilson marks their fundraising leap with a shaking black sharpie, causing the room to erupt into chaos and frantic shouting. The worst of the noise being, of course, at Bruno Walton's table.

“This is an outrage!” Bruno exclaims, fist thumping the table and making Boots' orange jump and roll off his tray.

“We've only got three days left.” Boots sighs, looking at the nearly five hundred dollars they've fallen behind.

“There's no way we can put something together in that time.” Chris agrees, who had been selling his art pieces as fast as he could make them.

“We're banned from the kitchen, too!” Wilbur says, looking rather crestfallen, since he'd been helping the bake sales until the whole committee had been forbidden from stepping inside after an incident involving Sidney and ten pounds of flour.

“We're doomed!” Mark cries, putting his head on the table in dismay. “Those damn turkeys are going to beat us!”

“Not on my watch.” Bruno says, darkly, and starts casting his eyes around the cafeteria, as if he is physically searching for an idea.

“There's nothing else we can do.” Pete says, patting Mark's shoulder. “We've already done everything!”

“Anything I can formulate to help requires more time.” Elmer agrees, adjusting his glasses.

Boots is inclined to agree, but something in his years of experience tells him not to count them out yet. He watches Bruno as his finger tap a rapid, thinking rhythm on the tabletop. The chatter of the cafeteria is annoyed and disappointed.

“We were so close.” Larry bemoans, coming to sit next to Wilbur, looking at them all. “What's the plan now? Are we going to auction the clothes off our backs?”

Bruno's head snaps up, and Boots' heart sinks.

“I just had the best idea.” Bruno says to them all, eyes flashing bright.

Boots isn't exactly excited about an idea that is sprung from a comment like Larry's, but at the same time he _really_ doesn't want the turkeys to win.

“I'm not selling my clothes.” Pete says, arm around his blue shirt like Bruno is going to leap across the table and take it from him.

“Not sell,” Bruno says, excited “ _Auction._ We auction ourselves!”

Boots knows what he's talking about, and says with no small amount of dread. “A student auction?”

“Exactly!” Bruno snaps both his fingers. “It doesn't need any preparation, we don't need to make anything.”

“What is it?” Chris asks, looking wary.

“Pretty much what it sounds like,” Boots replies. It had been in a newspaper article they’d both read. “Auctioning students off, usually to do silly tasks or labour.”

“We can have other students participate.” Bruno is already miles ahead. “Make a day of it, of course we'd need some rules – nothing that would get us arrested, of course!”

“Of course.” Larry says, dryly.

“It's supposed to be in good fun.” Boots amends, to their skeptical looking table, since he's obviously not going to sway Bruno away from the idea now that he's had it. “Kind of like you buy a servant for the day.”

“Yeah, but there's no way we're gonna be the ones buying.” Pete says. “Since we're Bruno's friends, we're gonna be the ones being servants.”

“It's a small price to pay for defeating the turkeys!” Bruno exclaims, confidant and loud voice gaining attention already. “Unless, you want them to win? We need to help the children, my friends!”

Boots knows he'll end up saying it, so he says it first, “I'll do it, Bruno. Count me in.” and looks to the others expectantly.

All of them sigh, and make faces, but they all agree. Boots looks to Bruno, and sees him smiling directly at him. The committee is focused on the logistics of obtaining permission to proceed, so they don't notice when Bruno says to his roommate, “Thanks.”

“Of course.” Boots says, smiling back. “Can't let those turkeys win. Just make sure someone awful doesn't buy me.”

“I promise.” Bruno replies, hand over his heart. Then turns to Larry to get him a meeting with the Fish to propose their idea.

[]

Boots suspects that the Fish is just as invested in this competition as they are, since when they bring him the idea he goes along with it. Of course, they have to agree to some rules, which basically boils down to ‘you can’t force anyone to do anything illegal’ and ‘don’t disrupt class’ which is a completely reasonable thing to ask. They set up the auction to be at lunchtime the next day, in the cafeteria, and the actual ‘servant’ day to be the following. It cuts it extremely close to their deadline, but Bruno is confidant the auction will succeed.

Using the extraordinarily effective method of Macdonald Hall’s word of mouth, by dinnertime everyone in the school is talking about the auction. Anyone who wants to be sold goes and signs up with the committee, and everyone else plots openly about buying their friends. Suggestions of crazy costumes, cleaning of dorm rooms, singing songs, and everything else under the sun has the entire school excited and anticipating the auction. Bruno beams at the growing chaos like a proud father.

All of the Help the Children committee are the first to sign up, and Boots is the second name to be written. Though he wants to support them, he is feeling a lot of apprehension at the idea.

The auction itself takes no preparation. The next day, once everyone is seated and waiting, looking expectantly at the make-shift stage made of three tables put together, the Help the Children committee begins the auction.

“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen!” Bruno says, shouting over the dim since they don’t have a microphone. His voice is loud enough to carry and quiet the crowds. He grins, clapping his hands together. “Welcome to the very first Macdonald Hall Student Auction! We have lots of student volunteers on the docket today, going to the highest bidder, to be your servant from 8am to 8pm tomorrow! All the proceeds will be going to Ontario Children's Charity Foundation to help raise money to bring Christmas presents to misfortunate children, and the added bonus of overtaking the York Academy in our little competition.”

As one, the school looks at the banner on the wall of the cafeteria and gives a cheer. Earlier, Larry had added another fifty dollars that they needed to overcome.

“Now, to begin, we have a few rules. You cannot make your student do anything illegal, immoral, something against school rules, something you were assigned to do yourself, or disrupt class. Secondly, you can’t buy yourself. Sorry Pete.”

Pete, who had been planning such a thing, sticks his tongue out at him.

“Lastly, have fun and let’s beat those turkeys!” Bruno calls, and the school joins him in the shout. “Alright! I have the list here, and we’re going to in alphabetical order, to be fair.”

Bruno, of course, is the auctioneer. They call up the first people on the list and begin.

There’s a lot of laughing, and playful jeering. Bruno announces the person like a commercial, pointing out a pre-determined list of their skills or offerings. Boots, as he listens to the things that his classmates will be subjected to in the next day, gets slightly more anxious.

 It’s alphabetical by last name, so Boots is near the middle of the auction. He gets up and stands in the middle of the stage and tries to pretend his knees don’t feel weak. “Next on the docket is Mr. Boots O’Neal! Sports extraordinaire, and faithful friend!” Bruno turns and throws Boots a wink, which helps his nerves a little. “Let’s start the bidding at ten dollars.”

Most people so far had their friends bidding on them, so Boots isn’t very surprised when Elmer bids on him. He is surprised though, when Elmer persists through all of the others who try to buy him.

“Why do you want me so badly?” Boots asks, from the corner of his mouth, creeping to the chairs where the committee is sitting.

“I have an experiment I want to try, and you have the perfect hair for it.” Elmer says, beaming.

Boots feels the horror go through his veins and snaps his head to Bruno.

“Bruno.” Boots hisses. “You said you wouldn’t let someone awful buy me. Do something!”

Bruno pauses in his enthusiastic auctioneering to whisper back, “I don’t have any money.”

“Elmer wants to experiment on my hair!”

Bruno spreads his hands empathetically. “I’m sorry.”

Boots glares at him. Elmer wins the auction, at fifty dollars, and Boots doesn’t even feel flattered at his worth.

“Good!” Elmer says, when Boots goes to sit back down. “I hope you’re not allergic to dye.”

Boots is so bitter.

He seethes for a little while, and then an idea comes to him.

“Next on the docket is… me, Bruno Walton! I am obviously an amazing person and I will start my own bidding at twenty dollars.”

Boots raises his hand immediately.

Bruno looks at him, surprised, but says, “I have twenty, do I hear twenty five?”

Quite a lot of people want to buy Bruno, and Boots persists through each and every one of them. Once they reach seventy-five dollars, Bruno is looking at Boots rather nervously.

“Do I hear eighty?” Bruno says, and glances at Boots, worried.

Boots thinks ‘screw it, I don’t need a new bike this summer’, and raises his hand again, determined to win.

There’s a ripple laughter at Boots’ resilience and Bruno’s obvious anxiety at the situation. Most people in the school know the two of them, and find the fact that Boots is very steadfastly attempting to buy Bruno’s servantry hilarious. Whoever he is competing against concedes.

“Winner, at eighty dollars.” Bruno says, gesturing to Boots.

Boots smiles serenely at him, already trying to think of what he's going to make him do.

The committee also finds this hilarious. After the auction, they crowd around Boots, grinning.

“You should make him wear a dress!” Pete suggests.

“I don’t own a dress.” Boots says. 

“You should make him have to sing all day.” Sidney says.

“No, better yet, you should make him not talk all day.” Chris says, laughing.

“Aw, you guys.” Bruno comes up behind Pete, arms crossed. Then he meets Boots’ eyes. “Is this because I let Elmer buy you?”

“This is because you let Elmer buy me.” Boots confirms, a little smug.

Bruno hangs his head, and the others laugh.

Boots doesn’t really have a big plan, but he has an idea, taking an hour or two after dinner to borrow Chris’ fabric paint. He doesn’t have any more time though, since there is an English essay he has to work on. Bruno makes a face when Boots comes back with paint on his hands. “What’s that from?”

“You’ll see tomorrow.” Boots says, in a slight sing-song, having more fun with this than he thought. It might be worth eighty dollars and the possible loss of his hair.

Bruno groans.

In the morning, Boots goes immediately at 8am to Elmer’s dorm. He goes while Bruno is still sleeping, and it only takes Elmer less than an hour to dye Boots’ nice hair twenty different colours. The smell of the dye is annoying, but not as annoying as Elmer’s cheerful comment that it ‘may not be permanent, depending on whether or not your hair falls out’.

With a truly terrible new hair-do, Boots rushes back to the dorm, and wakes Bruno up by kneeling on his chest.

“Good morning!” he says.

Bruno opens his eyes, and then they widen comically. “Your hair.”

“Yup, my hair, thanks for that. Put this on.” Boots throws a white shirt at him. Bruno rubs at his eyes, still not awake, and flaps out the shirt. It’s been painted in red with ‘ _Boots O’Neal’s #1 fan’_.

Bruno laughs, and pulls it on immediately. “How’s it look?”

Boots can’t help but also laugh. “Fantastic.”

He still hasn't though of much more, but he tells Bruno the thing he’s thought of him to do so far. His roommate agrees easily enough, and the two of them hurry to class.

They make a good pair—Boots with his hair that looks like multi-coloured vomit and Bruno with his new shirt.

Chris grins when he sees them. “Nice shirt, Bruno!”

Boots looks at Bruno expectantly. Bruno launches into the pre-determined spiel. “I am the founder of Boots O’Neal fanclub, he is the greatest person in Macdonald Hall and much better than me.”

Chris turns pink from laughing so hard. Bruno adds a bow.

“What do you have to do?” Boots asks, since Chris doesn’t have anything different.

“Art, of course.” Chris says. “I was bought by a student who wanted a superhero comic made about them. It’s actually pretty fun.”

They see Sidney and Larry in the hallway, and both of them make face-splitting grins at Bruno’s speech. He adds a little charming dance at the end, pointing finger guns at Boots that makes him grin. Sidney, in turn, has a three-piece suit on and is playing literal servant for his buyer, which was a terrible idea since he keeps dropping the things he's meant to carry. Larry tells them that he has to do a dance number at lunchtime in front of everyone.

Three people in their English class are participating as well. One guy in a princess style dress, stopping to curtsy everyone they pass while their friends giggle. Another is dressed in a horse costume and carrying their buyer everywhere. The last gets the attention of the entire class before the bell rings and sings Bohemian Rhapsody from start to finish.

The energy in the whole school is happy and contagious.

Mark tracks them down while they're shuffling between classes. “Oh man, the guys were right! Can I hear your speech?”

Bruno immediately starts, but this time he is bellowing it cheerfully, with huge, dramatic gestures and getting the attention of the entire hallway. “I am the founder of Boots O’Neal fanclub!” he does a twirl and grabs Boots' arm, raising it like a champion. “He is the greatest person in Macdonald Hall,” the crowd laughs, and Boots ducks his head with a smile. “And much, much better than me!”

Mark takes a picture with his camera, and Boots knows it will be in the next issue of the newspaper. It's a shame his terrible new hair will be in the picture too.

In math class, there’s someone carrying a bird everywhere, and another hula-hooping the whole way. Pete comes in wearing a complete cowboy costume and talks in a ridiculous accent. “Hey there Bruno,” Pete drawls. “Nice shirt ya' got there.”

Bruno ends up standing on the table to announce his speech, gesturing like a Shakespearean play. Boots buries his face in his hands and regrets all his life decisions up to this point.

“Yes, Mr. Walton, your appreciation for Mr. O'Neal is noted, but I would like to be able to start the class now.” Their math teacher says, good naturedly.

Bruno gets down, and sits with perfect, innocent posture. “Yes sir.”

At lunch, everyone anxiously waits for Larry to come from the office and bring the new donation total, to see if they had overcome their deficit with the new money raised yesterday. It doesn't take long, and Boots knows solely by the grin on Larry's face that they did it. He marks Macdonald Hall down as a hundred dollars more than York Academy, and the cafeteria goes nuts.

Bruno gets up, hurrying to the front and jumping onto a table, standing high above everyone. “We did it!” he cheers, and the school cheers with him.

Boots adds a shrill, piercing whistle to the celebration.

“First, let me thank you all for your support, I hope you're all having fun with our Student Auction day!” Bruno shouts, and Macdonald Hall once responds again, with cheering and laughter. “And secondly, I have an announcement!”

Everyone quiets, looking at him expectantly. Bruno sucks in a breath, and says, “I am the founder of Boots O’Neal fanclub! He is the greatest person in Macdonald Hall and much better than me!” He dances with jazz hands and blows a kiss to Boots at the end. Everyone laughs and cheers, looking over to Boots at the end who is rolling his eyes but grinning.

Bruno gets down, but Larry leaps up, going to the front and trying to do an entire dance number with presumably little practice. The school enjoys it thoroughly, and the whole lunch hour is filled up with people getting to the front and doing something embarrassing, but no one seems embarrassed. Everyone is having a good time.

Elmer spends the lunch hour tutoring the student who had bought him in math, which Boots thinks is probably cheating. The biggest upside to Bruno being so Bruno-ish with today is that no one has had time to comment on his hideous hair.

“Man, you really made Bruno go all out!” Wilbur says to Boots.

He never actually asked Bruno to do anything more than recite the speech, anything else has all been of his own accord. He can't really say, 'no, actually, this is just Bruno being unable to do anything halfway' and instead smiles and says, “He's doing a good job.”

The day continues on like that. Bruno gets on some more tables, yells at the top of his lungs, and Boots still can't stop smiling every time he witnesses Bruno's enthusiasm, which feels strange and fluttery since it's always directed towards _him._

In the evening they watch Wilbur get pied in the face with a banana cream and do the cinnamon challenge, and Mark ends up giving out a newspaper written specifically about his buyer.

When they get back to the dorm, it's past 8pm and the auction day is officially over.

“You can take that off now.” Boots says, glancing at his friend. “I didn't even have to think of anything else for you to do today, you just went all out on your own.”

Bruno doesn't move to remove the shirt. “Well, it's true anyway.”

Boots gives him a questioning look. “What is?”

“I am the founder of Boots O’Neal fanclub.” Bruno grins, huge but nervous.

“You are?” Boots says, a little dumbly.

Bruno nods. “You are the greatest person in Macdonald Hall, really. I meant it.”

His roommate just stares at him. “I...”

Bruno swallows, looking down, then gets up jerkily. “Alright, well, we have to--”

“You meant it?” Boots interrupts.

Bruno meets his eyes. “Well, yeah. Of course. I mean, you're my best friend ever. I'm usually always wanting to sing your praises, so it was kinda fun to do it out loud today.”

Then he licks his lips, looking at Boots with that same nervousness, and Boots finally understands.

“Are you trying to flirt with me?” Boots says, and watches Bruno turn red. “Through elaborate announcements to the school and jumping on tables?”

“I mean,” Bruno scratches at the back of his neck. “When you put it like _that_...”

_That is so Bruno._ Boots thinks, then smiles, giant and unbound on his face. “Well, it was effective.” and crosses the steps between them and kisses him.

Bruno throws himself into it without a second of hesitation, tasting sweet and electric, and Boots knocks their teeth together and they laugh into each other's mouths. He tugs on the hem of the '#1 fan' shirt and has those flutters roar in his chest. Bruno kisses like it's a competition, and Boots wouldn't have it any other way.

Bruno still wears the shirt, once in a while, just to make Boots smile.


End file.
